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The Measuring Stick | The Unworthy Wound Stole Your Matches · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

• 0:01
  Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to unlocking the
• 0:03
  Paradigm portal. My name is Sarah.
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  Inside of you there is a bonfire.
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  There always has been. And it was burning before you
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  knew what to call it. Before anyone told you what you
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  were supposed to do with it. Before the world got its hands
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  on it and started deciding whether it was appropriate or
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  practical or too much. In your one job, your actual one
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  job in this life, is to keep it lit.
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  And you do that by doing the things you love, the things that
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  bring you joy, the things that make the world go quiet when
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  something more real is happening inside it.
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  Every time you do those things, you throw another log on the
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  fire. And every time you stop, every
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  time you trade the fire for the should and the have to and the
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  what will people think? The flames burned down a little.
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  And if you've been trading long enough, if the shoulds have been
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  winning for years, you don't have a bonfire anymore.
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  You have embers. They're still alive.
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  They're still there, but so small and so quiet that you've
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  probably started to wonder if the fire is just gone.
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  It isn't. But something has been
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  systematically smothering it. And today we're going to name
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  exactly what that looks like, because you might not even
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  realize it's happening. So if you caught Sunday's
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  episode, you heard me talk about the battle between the adult
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  brain and the part of us that actually knows how to do the
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  thing. That battle, that's this.
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  That's the unworthy wound shutting down the fire.
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  And here's what it looks like on a regular old Monday morning.
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  Not a dramatic breakdown, just a regular day.
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  You're exhausted. Not the kind of exhausted that
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  sleep fixes the bone deep behind the eyes.
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  I don't remember the last time I felt rested, kind.
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  And you keep pushing through it because stopping feels like
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  falling behind. Because rest has to be earned.
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  Because there is always, always something else on the list
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  first. Your brain won't turn off.
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  You lie down and instead of rest, you get a highlight reel
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  of everything you should have done differently, everything
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  coming up, excuse me, that could go wrong.
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  Every conversation you need to have, every decision you haven't
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  made yet. You're not thinking, you're
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  spinning. And you call it being
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  productive, but really, your nervous system is so wired from
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  performing all day that it doesn't know how to stop.
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  And your schedule is full. Not because your life is full,
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  because empty space makes you uncomfortable and an open
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  afternoon feels like a problem to be solved.
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  So you feel it. You keep filling it.
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  And then you wonder why you feel like you're always running but
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  never actually getting anywhere. You take a day off and spend
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  half of it feeling guilty. You call it a lazy day, like
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  that's a bad thing, like rest is something you have to apologize
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  for, like your body asking for a break is an inconvenience rather
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  than a signal worth listening to.
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  Or, and this one is sneaky because it looks like strength.
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  You wear the not stopping like a badge of honor, and you pride
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  yourself on how you can how much you can take on and how little
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  you need and how you just keep going no matter what.
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  And you say things like I'll sleep when I'm dead, ha ha ha
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  ha. But it's not funny.
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  It's the wound dressed up as resilience.
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  And then there's this one, the one nobody talks about because
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  it looks so normal. You accomplish something.
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  And instead of just feeling proud, like genuinely, quietly,
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  privately proud, you need to share it.
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  Not to celebrate, to be told it counts, to get the external
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  confirmation that yes, that was enough, Yes, you are enough.
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  Yes, you have earned your place today.
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  That's not pride. That's the wound asking to be
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  filled from the outside because it never learned how to fill
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  from the inside. Now, every single one of those
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  things is a bucket of water on your fire.
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  And here's what's underneath all of it.
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  The part that nobody tells you. That's not you.
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  That's the adult brain, the worthy wound built to replace
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  the part of you that actually knew how to tend the fire.
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  So think about who you were before any of this needed to
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  exist. You might not remember.
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  That's OK. Before you learned that rest had
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  to be earned. Before you learned that joy
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  needed to justify itself. Before someone, a parent, a
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  teacher, a system, a culture handed you the measuring stick
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  and you picked it up and never put it down.
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  There was a version of you that didn't need a self-care routine
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  and didn't need a framework or a five step plan or a podcast
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  episode telling them how to feel alive.
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  They just followed what lit them up and then did it again.
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  They didn't earn rest, they just rested when they were tired.
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  They didn't justify joy, they just followed it.
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  They didn't perform their accomplishments for a committee.
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  They ran up to show you what they made because they were so
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  proud. And that was the whole reason.
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  No validation required, no measuring stick insight.
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  And they threw logs on the fire instinctively, because nobody
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  had told them yet that the fire needed to earn its right to
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  burn. That's not a younger, more
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  naive, less developed version of you that you left behind when
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  you grew up. That is a part of you that still
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  knows. The part that has been sitting
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  quietly under every exhausting, overanalyzed, guilt soaked badge
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  of Honor day, waiting for you to remember that they're there.
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  That part of you didn't disappear when the wound took
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  over. It went underground.
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  It found the smallest, safest corner it could, and it waited.
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  That part of you is the fire tender it always was.
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  And the embers are still there because it never stopped
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  watching over them. So how do you get back to that
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  little kid inside of you? How do you reconnect with the
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  part of you that knew how to tend the fire before anyone told
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  them that they were wrong? You start by asking a question
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  you probably haven't asked yourself in a very long time.
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  What would I do today if nothing had to be productive, If nothing
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  had to be earned, If I had 0 obligations and 0 audience and
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  the only measure of a good day was how alive I felt in it?
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  And I want you to notice what happens in your body when you
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  ask that, because one of two things is going to happen, most
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  likely. Either something comes up
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  immediately, a thing, a specific thing, something you used to do
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  or always wanted to do or stop doing so long ago you'd almost
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  forgotten. And the second it surfaces,
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  there's a flicker, A warmth, something moves.
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  That's not nostalgia, that's the ember recognizing its own name
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  being called. That's that child inside of you
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  telling you where to look. Or nothing may come up.
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  The question lands and there's just blankness, maybe a little
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  anxiety, maybe the immediate impulse to turn it into a task,
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  to make a list, to figure out the right answer.
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  That blankness is also information.
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  It means the wound has been running the show for so long
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  that that child has gone very quiet.
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  The fire is down to embers, and the adult brain that took over
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  doesn't know how to answer a question that has nothing to do
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  with productivity or performance.
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  And if that's you, don't panic. Don't make it another thing to
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  fix. Just get curious.
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  And again, if you listen to Sunday's episode, this is what I
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  was talking about years ago when my daughter asked me to tell her
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  a story and it felt like running into a wall.
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  And then just this past week it felt like the fire suddenly
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  blowing up huge because I realized what I wanted to do and
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  that kiddo took over. So ask yourself, when is the
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  last time I lost track of time? Not from scrolling, not from
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  distraction, but because I was so completely inside something
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  that the world just fell away. What was I doing?
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  Even if it was years ago, even if it feels small or silly or
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  impractical, that moment is a thread.
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  Pull it and ask yourself, what did I love before I learned I
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  wasn't supposed to love it so much?
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  What did I do as a kid that I stopped doing because I grew up
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  and growing up apparently meant trading the fire for the
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  schedule? And then ask yourself, what's
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  the thing I keep almost doing and then talking myself out of
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  the thing that keeps coming back, no matter how many times I
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  dismiss it. That thing is that child
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  knocking. That's the fire trying to catch.
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  And when you find it, even a flicker of it, even just the
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  memory of it, you don't evaluate it.
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  You don't ask whether it's practical or whether you're good
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  enough at it or whether it's going anywhere.
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  You just tend it quietly, without announcement, without it
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  needing to produce anything or go anywhere or justify itself to
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  a single person, including you. You get low, You cup your hands
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  around what's left, and you blow air on it gently.
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  You know, like you do at a campfire when it's burned down
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  and you want to bring it back. You don't panic, you don't pour
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  accelerant on it. Well, some people do.
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  You just get close and you breathe life back into it
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  slowly, and you watch what catches.
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  That part of you knows how to do the rest.
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  It always did. Your job is just to stop
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  smothering what it's been keeping alive.
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  So the exhaustion, the overthinking, the pack schedule,
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  the guilt on the day off, the badge of honor around never
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  stopping, the accomplishment you shared because you needed
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  someone to tell you it counted. That's not who you are.
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  That's what the unworthy wound built when it pushed the fire
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  tender underground and told the adult brain to take over.
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  That part of you is still in there, watching the embers,
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  waiting for you to come back and remember that the fire was never
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  supposed to earn its right to burn.
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  It was just supposed to burn. So this week we're going to get
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  back to that child 1 wound at a time, 1 ember at a time.
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  We're going to take everything that we've excavated over weeks
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  and months about all the wounding.
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  And rather than living in the wounding or analyzing it, we're
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  going to see where it shut down that child inside of you to give
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  you some ideas of how to start bringing it back.
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  So tend your fire like your life depends on it, because it does.
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  And I'll be back Wednesday and we're going to do the unlovable
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  wound on that one. So have a beautiful Monday.